Levels of Leaving
by romeoharvey
Summary: AU on Blind Spot.
1. Chapter 1

**Levels of Leaving**

Alex was no blabbermouth, but she wasn't ever completely silent.

She injected words into a conversation when she needed to, made remarks when he needed an answer to one of his own, made observations when he needed to hear them. She was the kind of woman who spoke with her actions, subtle though they were. He recalls how she did the talking, first with Deakins, and for a short time with Ross, and how he would stand fidgeting in the corner.

Now it's reversed. Alex is standing still in the corner by the door, to his left, as he engages in yet another argument with Ross. As usual, it's about how his partner feels uncomfortable working with him.

This speech is so well versed by both men that it's now automatic, and Ross doesn't even really care when Bobby tunes him out. It's more important that said partner is watching the pair with attentive eyes, wondering when would be a good time to request a transfer.

Inwardly Ross tallies up another point on his mental scoreboard for _The Partners That Ran Away_, and quashes down the fear that he may not be able to find a different partner for Major Cases' most unique detective.

As Ross winds down, Goren relaxes slightly, peeking out of his peripheral to the woman in the corner. He wants to talk to her, but Ross is here, and privacy is needed for what he has to say. For now Bobby reflects back to the long-lost days when they were like two of a kind. Always together; a set that couldn't be taken apart because one without the other was something... worthless.

Less than a couple of years ago, Bobby could have counted on Alex to be his friend, but not anymore. That thought makes him almost angry at her. How dare she become someone dependable and even caring for him, and then just leave him the way she did. His fists clench at how he had to face the death of his mother, and her illnesses, all on his own, when Alex had all but said that she would be there for him when he needed her.

Consumed in the growing fury that is the only emotion, other than sadness, that dominates his soul nowadays, Bobby misses the end of Ross's little rant. It's not until he feels Danny's hand on his shoulder that Bobby flinches and realizes he's been dismissed. The touch of sympathy in Ross's gesture is disarming and unwelcome, and Bobby nods as he leaves, hoping to avoid another familiar lecture, this one all the more painful for the peace of mind it seeks to bring him.

By the time he reaches his desk, his emotions flee, and he is once again the stoic being everyone at 1PP has come to know him as. Bobby feels his soon-to-be former partners' stare on him as he moves to collect all the documents he will need back in the almost-solitude of his apartment, but he does nothing. He doesn't even spare the young man a glance as he walks away.


	2. Chapter 2

_Warm tears spill from his eyes as he flashes back to Alex's cold and mutilated body hanging from the ceiling of the room that had been her prison, courtesy of Jo Gage. He had stared and stared at Alex, hoping that somehow this nightmare might fix itself; that the cuts might heal and the blood might flow through her veins, banishing the iciness. _

_He shakes off his coat and drapes it over her, after releasing her arms from the hook. He has a few moments before the guys with the body bags came and take her away, and in those moments he holds her in a tight bear hug, hoping he would hear her muffled voice ordering him to quit crushing her. Or tell him he's stupid for shedding tears because there's nothing to cry about here._

_When someone repeats his name for probably the fourth or fifth time, he knows it is time to let her body go. So he had hugs her just a bit more tightly and plants a quick, chaste kiss on her forehead._

When he saw the bag being zipped up, he had thought that that would be the last time he would ever see her.

He had been wrong. So wrong, because Alex had been there at her funeral, standing beside him as her coffin was lowered into her final resting place. That had been within a couple days of her death, days Bobby had spent alternating with rage at the whole fucking Gage family and a stillness inside himself.

Alex's appearance wasn't frightful to him, in fact, he had come so close so many times to yelling at people for talking about her like she wasn't hearing every word they said. When she followed him back to his apartment he was glad to have her to look at.

Bobby didn't begin questioning his sanity until about a week afterwards, when she first began speaking to him. Just like she's doing right now.

"Bobby... Bobby, come on, don't do this now," she pleads as he lifts the fourth bottle of Jack Daniels to his lips. Pausing, he breaks with tradition and gazes directly at her.

As she kneels in front of him, Bobby speaks to her for the first time in months, "And why-why shouldn't I do this? Huh? It's.., it's n-not like you're here to stop.., stop me or anything."

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, Alex is still there, only she looks more anguished than she did just a second ago. And her tortured voice just sounds so real, more real than anything else has lately, that he can't help but doubt his own statement when she says, "But Bobby, I am here, I never left. You should know that."

Bobby doesn't believe in ghosts, so Alex has to really be here if she can take the bottle from him with gentle hands, the skin where it brushes against his as soft and warm as it ever was.

As she sits down next to him and lays her head on his shoulder, Bobby half asks her and half wonders out loud, "Have I finally lost it?"

Rubbing away the last trace of salty tear tracks from his face, Alex says, "Doesn't matter; I love you anyways."

It's like falling into abyss that might never end when he accepts what Alex says. But Bobby can't really care, because everything that's been weighing him down fades away with every movement as he wraps his arms around Alex.

Thinking that insanity doesn't feel nearly as bad as it's cracked up to be, Bobby whispers softly, "And I love you too, Alex."

End.

a.n.: Feedback on this would be much loved.

Disclaimer: Not Mine.


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